Lokant (37 page)

‘
No.
’

Eva strode into
Recender’s drawing-room, struggling to keep her irritation hidden.
The ambassador reclined in his silly dressing-gown once again,
smoking something from a pipe. The stuff smelled disgusting.

‘Brun,’ she purred.
‘You’ve done a fantastic job, but there seems to be a little bit
missing in the note I received.’

The ambassador said
nothing. He removed his pipe from his mouth and put it aside. Then
he patted his lap.

Eva didn’t move.

Recender’s eyes
glinted. ‘I see.’ He stood up and sauntered across the room,
letting his hand brush across Eva’s hip as he passed. She turned
quickly, keeping a close eye on him.

He opened a locked
cabinet. Eva tensed: here would be the final clue she needed,
something she could use to chase down Byllant.

But the sound of
pouring liquid reached her ears. Disbelieving, she edged around him
until she could see the contents of the cabinet.

He had set out two
small glasses and was filling them with dark red liquor.

‘Brun. I came here for
the address.’

‘And you shall have
it,’ he said, turning. ‘Later.’ He offered her one of the glasses.
When she didn’t move to take it, he picked up her hand and curled
her fingers around the stem. She was obliged to grip it before it
fell to the floor.

Not that she cared for
the fate of Recender’s carpet, but the splash might get on her pale
golden silk dress. And this was a marvellous gown.

‘I don’t have time for
this. I believe I warned you that my stay would be brief.’

‘Why so fleeting a
visit, my lady?’ Recender sipped from his own glass, moving to
stand closer to her than she appreciated.

‘The matter is
urgent.’

‘It can wait another
hour, I’m sure.’ His eyes ran up and down her body. ‘Perhaps
two?’

‘Not another ten
minutes.’

‘Ah.’ He set down his
glass and slipped a hand into one of his pockets. Eva’s heart rose
with hope; perhaps this time he would give her what she had come
for.

Instead he retrieved a
small velvet box. Flipping open the top, he showed her the
contents.

An enormous blood-red
ruby ring nestled inside on sleek satin. The stone glimmered darkly
in the low light of the drawing-room.

‘What’s that for?’

‘It is for you to wear,
my lady.’ His hand suddenly lashed out and grabbed her wrist.
Forcing her closer, he extracted the ring and shoved it onto her
finger.

He specifically
selected the left ring finger. As soon as his grip loosened, Eva
yanked back her hand and tugged off the ring.

‘This is nonsense. Give
me the address.’

‘You won’t be leaving,
my lady. At least not this evening.’

‘Oh?’ She kept her tone
mild, but inside she was seething.

‘Marry me. We make an
excellent team; you’ve said it yourself.’

Eva swallowed. Perhaps
she had overdone her mental persuasion just a little bit.

‘A tempting offer, but
one I’ll have to refuse.’ He was coming at her again; she backed
away until she hit the drawing-room wall. She tried to sidle
sideways but his arms shot out, blocking her escape. She took a
deep breath. Here was a fine test of her new abilities; one she
wasn’t sure she was ready for.

‘I am not nearly so
much fun when I am
unwilling,
my lord ambassador.’ She met
his eyes, willing him to let the matter go.

He struggled. His was a
strong will, almost a match for her.

‘I’ve never made a
proposal of marriage before,’ he hissed. ‘Your refusal humiliates
me.’

‘Nobody needs to know,
Brun.’

He thought about that.
For a horrible instant she thought he would overthrow her efforts
to influence him and proceed with his absurd proposal. Then what?
Physically, he was much stronger. If he truly wished to detain her,
he could do it.

To her relief he
nodded, slowly, his black eyes registering regret.

‘True. Though I wish
you would reconsider.’ He kissed her briefly. ‘I’ve a lot to give.
Power, wealth, status. Influence.’ He began nibbling at her
neck.

‘I have all those
things already.’

He groaned. ‘An
unbribable woman. Such a thing should be an impossibility.’

She had to grin at
that.

‘All right,’ he sighed.
‘Go, then.’ He stepped back. Relieved, she put a few feet of space
between them at once. The change from attractive to threatening had
been unsettlingly swift in him.

‘The address first, my
lord.’

He rolled his eyes.
‘Relentless female. Here.
Now
go away.’

She took the folded
piece of paper he thrust at her, tucking it into the pocket of her
skirt. With a curtsey and a mischievous smile for the ambassador,
she followed his command most willingly.

As she pulled the door
shut behind her, she heard the distinctive sound of a glass object
hitting the wall.

Tren was waiting for
her downstairs. He took one look at her and was on his feet
immediately.

‘Trouble?’

She shook her head.
‘All’s well, but I think we should leave without delay.’

‘Right.’ He took her
arm and led her to the front door. As they stepped through it, Eva
felt a sudden conviction that Recender was watching their
departure. But when she glanced behind her at the darkened
staircase, she saw nobody.

Eva opened Recender’s
note with some trepidation. Two possibilities occurred to her
worried mind. One, that the ambassador had been bluffing, and the
paper would be blank. Or two, that the address written there would
be for the same warehouse she and Tren had already explored, with
so little success.

She was relieved to
find that neither was the case. The property listed was almost on
the opposite side of Wirllen, and it didn’t look like it denoted
any kind of warehouse. She sent a brief, private note of thanks to
Brun. He might have been a pain in the rear in the end, but he had
resolved her problem anyway.

She wondered briefly
whether he had seriously wished to marry her. That thought made her
snort with involuntary laughter. There were reasons the man had
never proposed to anybody before. He was far too committed to his
roving bachelor existence to consider such a thing. Aside from
being absolutely unweddable.

What the experience did
suggest, however, was that she needed a little more practice at
controlling her ability to influence the will of others. While
there were dangers with applying too little willpower to the
target, there were certainly dangers attached to applying too much
also.

‘What are you laughing
at?’ Tren craned his neck around, trying to see what was written on
the paper.

‘Nothing, really.
Recender said some, uhm, amusing things. Here.’ She handed the note
across. Tren read it in silence.

‘Well?’ she said after
a moment.

‘Oh, great I suppose.
But how are we planning to do this?’

She frowned. ‘What do
you mean?’

‘We’re not just going
to march in there, are we? I mean, we aren’t particularly well
equipped to handle much of a threat between the two of us.
Supposing we encounter anything dangerous.’

She shrugged. ‘We’ll be
fine. Byllant appears to be an enterprising engineer, not a
criminal.’

‘Have to disagree
there. He’s distributing draykon bone technologies, which according
to recent rulings by all the governments of the Seven - including
Ullarn’s - is illegal. Those draykon bones should have been turned
in for research and safekeeping, not sold for profit.’

‘You weren’t concerned
about that when we went to the warehouse.’

‘Well, I should have
been. I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time.’

‘All right, I suppose
you have a point. Do you have any ideas?’

‘Er. I was thinking,
maybe, we could hire someone?’

‘Someone who?’

‘Someone with a nice,
sizeable sharp object. Or possibly a firearm.’

She grinned at that.
‘Lovely thinking, but I don’t happen to know any of those. Do
you?’

He shifted
uncomfortably. ‘I thought you might have some brilliant idea about
where to go for that.’

‘Not in Ullarn, I’m
afraid. We’ll be careful, all right? Anyway, we are not entirely
defenceless. We have a quick and oh-so-handy escape route.’ She
pointed to herself.

Tren merely grunted,
unimpressed.

Eva gave the
instructions to her hired coachman and allowed herself to be handed
into the carriage by Tren.

‘It’ll be a bit of a
drive,’ she said, settling back against the cushions. ‘Perfect
opportunity for a nap.’ With that, she closed her eyes.

She heard Tren sigh as
he slumped into the seat opposite her.

When the carriage
finally pulled up, Eva’s first thought was that they’d been brought
to the wrong place.

The street in which
they stopped was obviously a residential area. The houses were
small, even cramped; many of them were only one-storey. She
couldn’t imagine there were more than three or four rooms
inside.

Tren shrugged at her
questioning look. ‘Might be Byllant’s home address?’

‘True. I suppose I just
assumed that it would be a factory or an office.’ She shook out her
crumpled skirts, glancing up and down the street. It was late,
already well into the middle of the evening, and the street was
quiet. ‘How do you suppose we should proceed?’

‘Knocking on the door
is usually considered a good start.’ Tren shrugged back into his
jacket, his long fingers making short work of the buttons.

‘Just knock on the
door?’

‘Why not? We’re
planning to ask him some questions, I thought, not arrest him. And
the encounter’s more likely to be civilised if we start by being
polite.’

‘All right.’ She took
the arm that he offered and they crossed the street. All the
shutters in Byllant’s house were closed, and no gleam of light
suggested the presence of an inhabitant.

After all the trouble
it had taken to find this place, it would be terribly inconvenient
if the man wasn’t even home.

A light tap on the door
brought no answer. She knocked again, more loudly. Nothing.

‘Let’s try the back,’
said Tren. Eva followed him down the side of the house to the small
walled yard at the back. To her extreme distaste, Byllant’s garden
was full of mud.

‘Next time, remind me
to change my gown first.’

Tren chuckled. ‘I
thought we were in a terrible hurry?’

‘That may be true,’ she
said with dignity, ‘but there is very little in this world that is
worth the sacrifice of a favourite gown.’

‘Your faithful factotum
ought to have been prepared for that.’

‘Yes, he should have
been. Why weren’t you, Tren?’

He swept her a deep bow
of apology. ‘I can only beg your forgiveness, my lady. I am
unworthy.’

She sniffed. ‘Amends to
be made later. You can do the knocking this time.’

Tren obliged, pounding
on the door loudly enough to wake the dead.

‘That might have been
excessive.’

‘One merely does as her
ladyship commands.’

Nothing moved within.
Eva noticed Tren eyeing the door speculatively.

‘Forget it. You are not
kicking it in.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’d bring
the whole neighbourhood down on us.’

‘Then I cede the floor
to your ladyship. Any other ideas?’

‘One. Keep close to
me.’ She reached out to find Tren’s arm in the darkness. Instead of
taking his wrist, she took his hand and laced her fingers through
his.

‘Er, what -’

She was getting faster
at translocation. Within seconds they stood on the other side of
the little house’s rear door.

Tren stared at her. ‘I
still think that’s creepy.’

‘Quiet.’ She stood for
a moment, listening. If Byllant was home, he was a master at
keeping silent.

Or maybe he was just
sleeping.

‘We’re exploring,’ she
said in a low voice. ‘Stay close.’

‘I can’t go anywhere
anyway.’ On her giving him a questioning look he added, ‘You still
have hold of my hand.’

‘So I do.’ She quickly
disentangled her fingers from his.

‘That wasn’t an
invitation to go away.’

‘Shhh.’ Some slight
sound had reached her ears. From Tren’s sudden tension she guessed
he’d heard it too. Maybe somebody was home after all.

A light-globe went on
in the next room.

‘Who’s there?’ The
voice was deep and rich, definitely male.

‘Mr Byllant?’ Eva made
to step forward, but Tren put out an arm to hold her back. He took
the lead, advancing warily into the small living room.

A tall figure stood in
the middle of the room with the light at his back, leaving him
largely in shadow. He wore dark clothes to help that effect along,
and his face was partially covered.

‘Who are you?’ he
demanded.

‘No danger to you,’ she
assured him. ‘At least, not yet. We must ask you some
questions.’

‘How did you get
in?’

‘We knocked. When there
was no reply, we took a more direct method.’ The man had made no
move to attack; Eva stepped out from behind Tren, gently pushing
his arm out of her way.

Byllant’s eyes were
black in the darkness and shadowed, but she could see that he
studied her. His gaze was fixed on her hair. Then he stepped into
the light, pushing back the scarf that hid his features. He had
Darklander-pale skin, hazel eyes and chestnut hair tied back. His
smile was confident and charming.

Eva knew that face.
Last time she’d seen him he had been in a state of very ill health,
his face wan and dark shadows marking his skin. But it was
unmistakeably the same man.

‘
Devary
Kant?’

Tren looked sharply at
her. ‘What? You know him?’